Microgrids: So Much More than Backup Energy

Colorado, USA --
Most Americans don't have to think much about energy reliability. We plug in a computer and it powers up; we flip a switch and the lights come on.

While very reliable today, the U.S. electricity grid is old and has gone at least five decades without a significant technological upgrade. The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is working with industry on one solution to help maintain a secure, reliable flow of energy: microgrids.

A microgrid is a smaller power grid that can operate either by itself or connected to a larger utility grid. Microgrids can serve areas as small as a few houses, all the way up to large military installations.

"If your home was part of a microgrid, you could continue to receive power even when the utility power goes out," NREL Electrical Engineer Mariko Shirazi said. "It gives you the ability to ride through any disturbances or outages by seamlessly switching over to locally generated power."

It's important to note that a backup power system — like a diesel generator — is not the same as a microgrid. Backup generators supply power to local loads in the event of an outage, but there is usually a delay or blip when you lose power and disconnect from the utility grid before the backup kicks in. In addition, a backup system is never meant to run continuously, nor to put power into the grid. However, the reverse is true — a microgrid can serve as a backup power supply.

A microgrid senses the quality of the power flowing through the grid. In the event of an outage, it can disconnect from the grid at a moment's notice. It can also leverage solar, wind, or stored energy to supplement a dip in the current power supply. If things are running smoothly with the regional grid, a microgrid generating electricity from renewable sources can export that clean energy to the grid for everyone's use.

Just Connect and Go?

The major components of a microgrid include a source of power generation, local loads, and electrical switching gear. It might also include inverters and energy storage — all of which sounds easy enough to just connect up to get started, right?

"These technologies are in different stages of maturity; the challenge is to get them all to operate together in a stable, concerted way to accomplish the goals of efficiency, security, and energy reliability — all of which are required from a microgrid," NREL Electrical Engineer Greg Martin said.

(Image, right: As part of its microgrid research, NREL recently worked with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District to test microgrid-ready natural-gas generators at the Distributed Energy Resources Test Facility. Credit: Connie Komomua. Enlarge image)

There are two prongs to the microgrid work at NREL: innovative research and partnering with industry.

NREL works with industry to test microgrid systems by providing the experts as well as the infrastructure to support microgrid testing. The U.S. Department of Defense is also working with NREL researchers to examine using microgrids to improve base reliability. Testing includes using grid simulators, load banks, and generators, all currently at the Distributed Energy Resources Test Facility at the National Wind Technology Center near Boulder, Colorado.

"We use equipment such as a grid simulator to create a virtual electric grid to test equipment that is planned to be connected to a utility," Martin said. "We create outages, or some other kind of electrical phenomenon, to make sure the equipment operates as expected. We basically try to make stuff work while making sure it works the way it's supposed to."

"Utilities need to be shown that this technology is safe to integrate into the system and won't affect the normal operations," NREL Energy Systems Integration Director Ben Kroposki said. "One of the goals at NREL is to provide that test bed for a variety of scenarios to be run so that utilities can see that the risk is being reduced."

An example: take a 200-kilowatt microgrid in a residential area with 100 kilowatts of photovoltaics (PV) installed on homes. When all the homes are grid-connected through a local utility, those 100 kilowatts of PV are no big deal. But once the homes are disconnected from the grid, that's a high ratio of PV. Researchers work with industry to figure out which resources have to be maintained to keep the power reliability needed for critical loads. Key questions include, should the homes start shedding loads if a cloud crosses the sun and the PV power drops? Or is energy storage needed, so when a cloud comes, the power supply stays consistent?

NREL is leading the way in understanding issues in energy systems integration and helping industry work through them. The lab's research tools will get a boost when the Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) is completed later this year.

Taking Research to the Next Level

"ESIF is going to be like our current lab on steroids, and will expand our testing scale to 1 megawatt," Martin said. "We'll be able to test large single components like large utility-scale inverters. We'll also be able to scale up the complexity of our testing. Using the Research Electrical Distribution Bus [REDB], and hardware-in-the loop, we'll be able to connect dozens of sources and loads and be able to test their interactions with each other. Now, we collect single data points. At ESIF, we'll be able to collect high-speed, time-synchronized data at numerous points throughout the REDB."

(Image, left: NREL is leading the way in understanding issues in energy systems integration and helping industry work through them. The lab's research tools will get a boost when the Energy Systems Integration Facility is completed later this year. Credit: Dennis Schroeder Enlarge image)

Using a high-performance computing data center, NREL will be able to simulate entire distribution systems. When testing a microgrid system, engineers can monitor its voltages and frequencies at the point where it joins the distribution system, enabling them to simulate the effect of a microgrid on the larger utility. This is important, because being physically connected to the grid is often not practical — plus, the utility doesn't have to worry about putting an unproven technology on their system.

"Utilities see this as a growth area, and they would like to understand it," Shirazi said. "Even if they aren't implementing a microgrid themselves, they may want to understand how it works for those customers who do want to install one on a section of their distribution system. Working with NREL helps them implement this type of system without impacting their customers."

NREL's grid simulators make this testing possible without hooking up the equipment to the regional utility grid — which would be prohibitively tricky. First, researchers would need the foresight to know when voltage anomalies were going to happen, and assuming they could catch them, there would be only one chance to test equipment. With grid simulators, researchers can create voltage and frequency anomalies and see how the system behaves.

"ESIF is going to give us more research power, both in the actual electrical power but also in the ability to collect data across all points in the system," Martin said. "It will also offer really awesome visualization that will enable us to look at data coming in from different places, to look at simulations and video feeds, in a really nice, easy, big way. We're sure this visualization capability will help ignite collaborations among NREL, industry, utilities, academia, and government agencies."

"ESIF is really going to move us forward to the next generation of power systems in this country," Kroposki said. "There is consensus that our utility grid is aging and that we can get benefit out of making it more intelligent, efficient, and capable of accepting more sources of energy."

19 Comments

I wouldn't mind seeing those numbers, as a curiosity and for learning. My roof is usually always partially shaded, and my electricity bill is not too high, so I'm afraid if I just look at the economics, it doesn't make sense to install solar PV (and that without considering the shading problem, as I won't be cutting the trees). In Bob's case, doing pretty quick numbers, if he were able of saving the whole yearly bill of $2400, if he wants a payback of 10 years (which is not excessively good for an investment), he shouldn't pay more than $24,000 for the whole system (solar panels, wiring, inverter, protections, installation...). Being connected to the grid, I'd skip the batteries right now. Considering all the incentives and the actual cost, are the $24,000 and achievable goal? (I would prefer something more in the range of the $17,000 to get the payback in 7 years or so)

Why would you EVER drag global warming into this discussion? It is totally NON-SEQUITUR. Anecdotal evidence is just that - anecdotal. Unless and until an analysis is performed with precision and controls the all the talk and discussion is useless. Any scientist that tries to write a paper based on anecdotal evidence would be laughed out of the scientific community and rightly so.

In essence, by not providing ANY REAL INFORMATION for my information request, you are ADMITTING that the cost of these systems is not economical, period. Yes - that's the PUT UP OR SHUT UP. That was the ARGUMENT from the beginning and that is STILL THE ARGUMENT (even though you attempt to go off on a totally unrelated tangent).

Come on Larry - you must be installing these things left and right. I know there are parts and specs on various technical items that I work with on a regular basis and I could quote them off the top of my head. SURELY you must be able to put something together with very little effort - so - where are the numbers? You are doing the SAME thing the politicians are doing (both sides) - just "calling names" without putting for a REAL PLAN - REAL EVIDENCE that SOLAR IS ECONOMICALLY VIABLE.

I mean come on - how many OTHER people in this forum would install solar power is it meant that the overall cost of their power was 2x ??? At what point WOULD they install solar power? As for me, I would CERTAINLY install it if it was a wash, probably even if I had to pay maybe 10% more but any more than that an I would literally be throwing HUNDREDS of dollars a year away (based on an average yearly electricity bill of $2400 - 10% would be $240) and NOT MANY people are going to do that.

Then you get into name calling and that is where you lose it, period. PUT UP OR SHUT UP. Provide a list with MANUFACTURER's, MAKE/MODEL/Part #'s, COST/etc just as previously requested, period. Why is that so difficult?

Bob I hate to say it but you remind me of a potential client who I once refused to contract with.

After too many hours analyzing his needs and putting together a proposal, a proposal for advanced lighting on a half dozen gas station/stores,where his ROI was under 11 months and his out of pocket was going to be about $6500 after incentives,he demanded the bill should be zero before he signed.

Now after about 18 months, he's still paying a premium on all of his lighting that has exceeded his original requirement of $6500 by a multiple of about 3.

The only way I can describe this person is as a rather dim bulb.No pun intended.

There appeared to be no extent of logic or explaining the long list of technical benefits that got past the fact that he only heard what he wanted to hear.

You must realize that there is no way I would spend time trying through this medium to try and convince you of anything.

Your challenge of 'put up or shut up' rings somewhat hollow but as an unwarranted command it reveals far more about the person making the demand than the expected respondent.

Are you not revealing a bit of why potential contractors for your expected PV system may have given you such a high bid?

We do that all the time when we really don't want the contract but we want to be polite.

We carefully screen our clients most often more closely than they screen us.

I'm certain that there are others who read this blog who would not agree with your position and would prefer there be a free and open exchange of information in spite of it not being delivered in a spreadsheet form. In others words delivered in anecdotal form with occasional attempts at humor.

Dismissing anecdotal evidence that has such strong support in reality is an ultimate folly.

Denial of global warming ,where anecdotal evidence is overwhelming yet a person with no more meteorological or climatological training than the TV weatherman still believes it's a hoax is also folly

>>>Rather than discuss technical let's explore anecdotal evidence concerning others who were as stubborn and single minded in opposition to change as you appear, at least until reality came knocking and they changed their tune.

Anecdotal evidence is worth the paper it's printed on. Gas prices have been on the rise in various forms since the 70's.

This article IS ABOUT TECHNICAL DETAIL and it's what I want - I'm sure other readers would like to hear it too. So, what I WOULD like to hear from you, after all your brouhaha, is the details I asked from you. Put together a system to cover 1000-2000 kwh / month, list the manufacturer, parts, prices, etc. Then we can take a look at the cost to purchase, install (because MOST people in the US will not be able to install this themselves), and maintain such a system.

Bob I can state with confidence that if you were a client of mine,and you were willing to recognize severe inefficiencies and misuses of power you now have (odds are not in your favor that you do not fit this profile as hundreds of my previous clients will enthusiastically agree).

Rather than discuss technical let's explore anecdotal evidence concerning others who were as stubborn and single minded in opposition to change as you appear, at least until reality came knocking and they changed their tune.

When the Toyota Prius had its first public unveiling I had the privilege of being part of media who attended the ceremony.

The room was filled with executives from major car companies as well as seasoned automotive engineers and marketing executives.

The conversation over 'complimentary bubbly' and finger food was anything but optimistic for the future life of "the ugly jelly bean with a sewing machine drive train".

"No one in their right mind would pay such a price for such a silly car"

"The battery alone would bankrupt most buyers after a few years of use"

"It is doubtful fuel mileage is anything like they say"

"Too complex and failure prone"

And on and on.

Well that was 1997 and we now know that the Prius is quickly becoming an all time best seller and none of the negative claims made panned out.

No one except perhaps the bean counters at Toyota looked deeply into their 'crystal ball spread sheet' and analyzed 'the cost benefit ratios'

No customer ever entered a Toyota dealership and demanded a hybrid car.

No! Toyota instead opted to be extremely liberal and take a chance on "build it and they will come" being more than the title to a movie.

The Micro Grid is no different.

And as to 'cost benefit/pay off'

Just what is the cost to future generations in having our current crop of consumers making poor choices in energy purchases just to 'save' a few $$ a year on energy.

As I said before - I'm ALL EARS. And, just because something can be done, does NOT mean it can be done economically!

Put the numbers on the table and let's see where they fall. Let's say that my current household consumption varies between 1,000 and 2,000 kwh per month (summertime is more due to a/c and pool pump). Why not simply tell me where the components, with manufacturer name, model name/etc are that I can use to generate anywhere from half to all of this amount and list the prices.

I do live in an area with net metering so I could feed it back onto the grid, then pull from the grid at night (when the grid overall is less loaded) - that's one benefit of solar - it is generated during times that the peak demand typically occur.

I am seriously interested to see how much a system you would call out would cost. I see that you did list a generator as well, so that should also be included as one of the line items (along with potential yearly maintenance/etc). That, along with the inverter, and, if you plan to run while the grid is down, some type of energy storage system - typically batteries.

Bob, Larry...both of you need to get together and solve this issue of microgrids to MAKE it work, or make an alternative work so people dont waste time and resources on MGs.

I'm a hardcore Conservative, yet helped solve a problem by participating in a Health Hackathon in Milwaukee (buildhealth.org), being a very liberal event with all types of political bias and bashing. Once the introductory talk stopped, the WORK got done. Nobody gave a crap about anything else. It was Apollo 13-esque.

"You know, Larry, that is a very typical argument used by liberals or people"

Sorry BobPlugh1 but you did not even get past the first sentence before you completely destroyed your own argument.

You revealed that you feel you are of that other tribe. Essentially that other sports team.You like to see yourself as 'the other'
I'm 'unworthy' in other words.

You used the word liberal to describe me.
Is that an obvious malady like having one eye in the center of ones head?

So you surmise that I'm a liberal(what ever that means) simply because I'm optimistic and forward thinking?
So what would that make one if one is calling themselves a conservative (whatever that means)?

I know how many who like to call themselves conservative use this word as a pejorative. To some it's a dog whistle that elicits a Pavlovian response to those trained to hear it as such.

I refuse to participate.

"I've done my homework with the (very real) intent of putting a system on my house if it made economic sense. It didn't - plain and simple."

I certainly would not attempt to second guess why you felt it did not make economic sense.

I would only surmise that like so many others,especially here in the US, your expectations of what constitutes 'enough' is far out of line with a practical reality and thus our long laundry list of environmental and energy issues.

With PV modules and even BOS component costs as low as they are it would only not make sense, either economically or environmentally to install a system if you lived either where power was free and renewably sourced or the sun just never shined.

Just so folks don't get the idea that all I do is talk the talk but don't walk the walk when I make some of my statements....

I built my first solar PV panel from cast off scrapped silicon 'dice' used in making SCR's and Diodes in 1976
Proud as any father over his newborn baby as I watched my old GE analog meter register a solid 400 ma's at 11.8vdc on an old car battery. Don't laugh. I was so encouraged by that I spent the next 36 years proving the nay sayers wrong who claimed no one in their right mind would ever spend a dime on PV panels.

Suppose I got the last laugh

But in regard to the micro grid

I have conducted real world testing of a small 11kw AC Coupled micro grid. I have used all off the shelf readily available equipment to assemble grid tied inverters,wood gas generator and asynchronous inverter (acts as the grid signal and as a power buffer)

Using an Atmel chip set and a multiplexer as well as some high current low cost latching relays I have a load management system that works quite well as I'm able to power my shop with lathe,mill,welder and all heating and lighting as well as the house loads with little if any real problems.

I have been able to manage power factor correction,voltage sag,power surges and intermittent clouds passing with little if any problem.

I'm also connected to the grid but do not sell power back
I only use them as a backup power buffer and for low power loads at night.

I charge an EV, and have never felt the least bit restricted in how I use power.

Although I made certain that all loads were as efficient as possible.

If I can do this with low cost off the shelf equipment then what could be accomplished where a real concerted effort was made to do the same and better

I once saw a sign in a fix it shop that read

"difficult problems can be solved in short order"
"the impossible just takes a little longer"

That's how I see micro grid issues in spite of any protestations to the contrary.

QUOTE
They are known as the 'talking heads'
Instant experts placed stragically in every media oulet and university.

And what is the shortcoming they illustrate?

It is their inabilty to even make a feeble attempt at seeing something other than what is imprinted on their collective mental 'data banks'.
UNQUOTE

You know, Larry, that is a very typical argument used by liberals or people who want to get people involved in an emotional discussion when one based on numbers and facts is really what needs to take place.

I am NOT some talking head. I am a professional with multiple degrees from MIT and over 30 years of real-world experience. If someone wants me to "like" something simply based on how I "FEEL" then I call it as I see it - in other words - it is PURE, UNADULTERATED BS.

All I said was that *I* did not see any cost benefit. I left the door OPEN to anyone who could pull verifiable numbers together to refute my claim. Needless to say, I would indeed verify them and, if I could, I would act on them too!

You see, I am NOT some anti-alternative energy person. I would VERY much like to see (sooner rather than later) a day come when the actual implementation of solar power was economically feasible. I've done my homework with the (very real) intent of putting a system on my house if it made economic sense. It didn't - plain and simple.

Are there people out there who put a system in ANYWAY - sure - there are ALWAYS people with more money than they know what to do, and, there are people who are willing to SACRIFICE other things in order to make a statement. The problem is that *I* am not one of those people and the VAST MAJORITY of the population is not either. We simply cannot afford to literally throw money away at a problem like this.

GOVERNMENTS are artificially manipulating the market by REQUIRING utility companies to buy a certain percentage of their power from "renewable" sources.

>>>This would seem to be mainly a matter of software programming. We already have inverters that remove your PV/Wind/Hydro home from the grid in case of a grid-down situation. They're still connected to the grid, but not feeding power.

No, it is MUCH more than that. Both Solar and Wind power do not have 100% availability. So, when the grid IS down, unless you have enough on-site power generation to meet your needs, your house WILL be without power and that is something people want to avoid.

The fact of the matter is that we have a better idea when the Solar power will be available, however clouds and weather (e.g. rain) in general does affect solar at some level too.

In addition to putting in the Solar panels/Wind Turbine, a bank of (not inexpensive) batteries must be installed in order to cover the periods of time when the grid is down and alternative energy is not available in sufficient quantity to power the home.

There is also some amount of loss due to the inverters, but the ones out there now are in the 95% efficient range (i.e. not bad).

If you do some research you WILL see, though, that many of the "grid-tie" systems that are out there today will NOT provide ANY power to the house UNLESS THE GRID is up and running - sorry - that is just a fact (and yes, these systems are ones WITHOUT backup storage capability).

This concept I wrote above could also be expanded to alleviate the concerns of some who say our base load plants can't take the ramping up and ramping down. (which is a lie, they've been doing it for decades as your HVAC switch on/off affecting grid demand. A renewable energy source be it PV, wind, or hydro ramps much more slowly than an HVAC or electric stove/oven, etc)). Anyway, the point is that utilities could use the technology to take generation offline if there's too much supply, just as they drop certain users during unsustainable demand. Maybe they'd turn up your thermostat in the winter (heater on) based on extra supply. Most of these technologies exist in the computer/internet/networking field already. IT admins know right away if a remote location goes offline, if a computer gets disconnected (or unexpectedly connected). Computers self-announce and self-configure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_configuration_networking Network resources are auto-discovered. There's no reason these concepts and much of the existing technology couldn't be brought over to our electrical grid. Side question, sort of OT. Why can't all these 'Smart meters' act as anti-islanding cut-offs to prevent back-feeding of generator power to the grid? It would seem the next step so utility meters could communicate via sub-station(s) to determine exactly where a line break is and prevent islanding or micro-grid power in that area to protect utility workers fixing the break. Once the crew calls in the utility can manually 'clear' that 'fault' and an 'all clear' signal sent to the meters previously kept off-line for utility personnel protection. This all falls within utility reliability and should be adopted for safety and reliability reasons regardless of distributed generation. This deserves PUC/gov't regulation in the interests of safety and uptime. Set ramping standards so utilities must adopt these measures over time.

This would seem to be mainly a matter of software programming. We already have inverters that remove your PV/Wind/Hydro home from the grid in case of a grid-down situation. They're still connected to the grid, but not feeding power.

We have utility "smart meters" that can be polled by utilities to determine if they're online or if there's a broken line somewhere. These meters or inverters could easily track site supply demand curves by T.O.Day and store such info for micro-grid usage.

We have "smart" HVAC controls that can supposedly be switched on or have the temperature settings adjusted by the utility if peak demand cannot be fulfilled. I believe utilities can drop industrial users in time of short supply.

With all these tools, it seems to me that IEEE and IETF could come up with some specifications for inverters/smart meters that could announce their availability to the micro-grid or grid-down situation. Something like, "my normal household usage at this time of day is XX/kWh, my available supply from solar/wind/hydro/generator is xx/kWh". Inverters could even be engineered to offer power to the grid at the expense of the house where they would shunt on-site generated electricity to the grid but keep the home offline or at least the home HVAC. Something like Honda's load shedding sub-panel technology where it can bring certain circuits up/down.

A micro-grid of smart utility meters could announce available power and requested power (based on retained info in meter or inverters). Then inverters could feed the micro-grid power and demand could be brought online to match by "intelligent" "smart" meters. This would be useful even in our legacy grid so demand and supply could be brought online site by site instead of neighborhood by neighborhood.

"Microgrids won't happen simply because it will be more difficult for government to regulate & tax them."

"Micro grids may SOUND interesting, but I don't see a CBA (cost benefit analysis)... Until I see something with good, honest, numbers , this discussion is nothing more than a wet dream."

Both of these statements clearly respresent the same basic handicapped and mentally crippled philosophy that now haunts our political system,as well as our overall culture and certainly afflicts our so called 'intellectual elites'

You know them all!

They are known as the 'talking heads'
Instant experts placed stragically in every media oulet and university.

And what is the shortcoming they illustrate?

It is their inabilty to even make a feeble attempt at seeing something other than what is imprinted on their collective mental 'data banks'.

Or perhaps we just do what the current crop of "intellectual midgets'
who laughabley call themselves the 'tea party' crowd do and blame the easiest 'whipping boy'; that being OUR government.

Neither of these responses required the least bit of careful thought or evaluation of the statements value or appropriateness in the discussion.

An old Chinese proverb states "a jounrney of 1000 miles begins with the first step"
These responses are more like ' if you can't see the a clear and open path with no obstructions and also a path that everyone agrees with and that is fully analysed to death, just cut off both your legs and forget the trip entirely.

Is it any wonder we can't seem to make progress on much of anything?
Is there something in the water we drink?

*Note to the tea party.
The original tea party was a protest against 'Royalty and global financial elites'. Ironically the modern day tea party crowd now finds this type of tyranny to be something to fight for and not against.

ANONYMOUS
August 30, 2012

Microgrids won't happen simply because it will be more difficult for government to regulate & tax them.

Paradigms from one market do not always fit as easily into other markets. Herein underlies the problem with the often incorrect notion of using analogies such as larryofgalaxy makes when he says "A society that can move beyond typewriters and dial phones can surely move beyond this antique thing we all call 'the grid'."

One of the most oft quoted analogies is that if the automotive industry made as much progress as the computer industry had in the past 10-50 years, a Rolls Royce would now cost $1.89 and get 2000 mpg. The analogy is true, no matter how irrelevant it is. Just look at hard disks. I can remember back to the early to mid 1980's - a 10 MEGABYTE hard disk for a micro pdp-11 was in the neighborhood of $2000 (all we really care about is OOM - order of magnitude here, so, whether it cost $1000 or $4000 it does not matter). Today, I am able to buy a 2 Terabyte Drive in the neighborhood of $100 - that's 200,000 times LARGER for 1/20th of the cost, for a rough improvement of roughly 4 MILLION times and that does not take into account the fact that $1 today is worth less than it was 30 years ago.

In the automotive industry, even if we "stretch" a bit, we can say that older cars from the 50's or so would get 10 mpg and the cream of the crop today get maybe 50 mpg - that's only 5x. In terms of cost, well, let's use the example of a VW in 1970 costing roughly $2000 (interesting how that's the same cost as our original hard disk - interesting, but irrelevant!). Today that same car costs approximately $20,000 for an INCREASE of 10x.

Using THIS analogy, our dollars today actually buy us FEWER MPG than they did in 1970. Again, this does not take into account the time value of money. If it did it would probably be much closer to "break even".

Micro grids may SOUND interesting, but I don't see a CBA (cost benefit analysis)... Until I see something with good, honest, numbers , this discussion is nothing more than a wet dream.

This is an impressive, valuable project, and a well-written article. Thank you. Michael's and Larry's comments are also on the mark. One grid does not fit all, all power should be local. Just as we segment customers routinely in marketing, why should we not segment customers for electricity? Microgrids of this kind will allow for that. With a technology like this, entry barriers in the electricity business drop - they already have with solar - the natural monopoly arguments weaken, and entrepreneurial start-ups will enter the business. Regulations have to respond to this reality. Could there be a more exciting time than now to be participating in this bigger than the Internet (perhaps) transformation?

It's quite obvious that had Thomas Edison or Tesla been able to access the technology we now have,this idea of a one size fits all interconnected mega grid would never have been constructed.

So much of the myriad of problems in implementing renewable sources of energy is directly attributable to our current mind set of trying to force renewable's to fit into the constraints the grid presents.

Yes it's a big leap but engineering of these systems has to be done by those who are willing to actively look beyond 'the grid'.

If enough creative energy and money is put into play,in 10 or 20 years time we may not even recognize the system known as our energy structures.

A society that can move beyond typewriters and dial phones can surely move beyond this antique thing we all call 'the grid'.

I think the entire mindset has to shift. The motto should be, "All power is local." and each section of the grid should figure out which energy sources will make it self sufficient. The rest of the grid should be the backup. That way the customers always have enough power and the oversupply will keep it less expensive.